Take It Like a Man
by thermodynamic
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Tim Shepard wants to earn his uncles' respect, even if it kills him— and it just might. On hiatus.
1. Prologue

... I was updating The Butterfly Effect. Somehow writing about big Tim led to me starting a spinoff about little Tim.

* * *

 _August 16th, 1958_

They had to nail the coffin shut.

"It ain't your fault," Tío Luis says, in his mix between an East Texas accent and a nasal Mexican one. He's twenty-two and Tim looks up to him like he's God— feels small and wet and threadbare, compared to him, swimming in a borrowed suit. "What happened to Carlos."

"Curly says it was. 'Cause I wasn't there to stop it."

"Curly's _eight_. He don't know shit from Shinola." Luis pats him on the shoulder; Tim leans into his side a little, too tired to support his own weight anymore. "Your dad had a real suicidal streak, trust me. I'm surprised he made it past thirty. Didn't have nothin' to do with you."

He lights up, right there in the cemetery. "You want one?" he says, holding out the pack like Tim is a full grown man, having a smoke at a funeral and shooting the shit. _Don't even think about it, you're too damn young_ , Dad had said when he caught him rummaging through his pockets, and punctuated the words with a sharp slap upside the head— funny, what he was too young for and what he wasn't. He was probably just pissed about losing the cancer sticks he spent good money on.

Tim nods a yes, and he knows to breathe in when Luis flicks the lighter. "You oughta come live with me now," Luis says, sputtering out a stream of curses as his cigarette smolders in the rain. "It'd be great— us two bachelors. I'd teach you how to play decent poker."

"Really?" Tim tries not to snap his spine straight up at the offer, look too desperate, but his heart still pulses in his throat. "You mean it?"

"Nah," he says with a weak snort, and Tim gives the mud at his feet a kick, though he never should've expected anything else. "I'm talkin' out my ass. Fuck, I can't take care of no kids. You'd be washin' down every meal with a glass of whiskey."

"I wouldn't mind," Tim says, hating the beg in his voice but unable to stop. "I ain't some dumb _kid_ , shit, I been lookin' after Ma and Curly and Angel when Dad went inside, I been pushin'—" He cuts it off, choking on his own tongue. "I wouldn't put you out."

He's not a _kid_ anymore. The word's sat wrong in his stomach, like something that can't be digested, since the first time his father put a pistol in his hands and let him cradle the greasy metal, memorize every contour of the trigger.

"Yeah, yeah, you're a real tough guy, I forgot." He flashes him a rare smile, incongruous with the atmosphere around them, and ruffles the hair he spent hours slicking down in front of the mirror. "When you're a lil' older an' Alberto gets his ass outta the pen, man, we're gonna tear this town up. Make 'em all our bitches. What do you say?"

"Sounds good," Tim says, shrugging, and they fall into an uneasy silence.

"Feels like all my brothers done gone to shit," Luis finally says. "Alberto ain't gettin' sprung until next year, now Carlos got himself an appointment with the Grim Reaper..." He shakes his head like a wet dog. "I know he's a little asshole, but you look after Curly, _entiendes_? Ain't nobody you can trust 'cept family, Timmy. You'll figure that out soon enough."

Tim breathes wrong on his barely-smoking cigarette and coughs, coughs, coughs, tears still stinging his eyes when he straightens up again— he could probably cry, at a funeral, but Dad once called him a faggot for crying about a cut leg and old habits die hard, so he blinks fast. He doesn't want Luis to see.

"It ain't the worst thing that could happen to you," Luis says. "Your daddy just bein' dead. Even if they carved him up good."

"How?"

They had to nail the coffin shut.

"He could've left." Luis pulls his jacket tighter around himself, as the wind picks up. "Hopped on the 7:30 bus to Muskogee and started a new family— your granddad did. Happens all the time. But for some goddamn reason, your mama wasn't enough to make him run like a bat outta hell."

Speak of the devil, Tim's ma swoops in then, clenching Angela with one hand and Curly with the other. Curly's crying because Dad's dead. Angela's still too little to really understand— she's crying because she wanted to wear her fairy princess dress, the pink one with the wings, but instead she has to wear a scratchy black one. "I told you not to come here," she says, spitting out ropes of damp hair. "I told you not to fucking come here."

Tim has never heard her cuss before. She might have had three children out of wedlock, but she sure believes in honoring God with your language.

"You can't keep me from my own brother's funeral."

"You're the reason why he's six feet under," she says, slashing through the air with her hand. "You and your dirty dealin' brothers... don't you talk to my son again." She lets go of Curly to pull Tim against her, but there's no affection in the gesture, only possession. "Don't you send him to a grave right next to his daddy's."

"Stupid _gringa_ whore," he says, but with none of his usual sparks and fire; it slips out bitterly, and he isn't looking at her, no, he's looking off into the distance, at the headstone. "How's he gonna survive in this world, huh? If he ain't tough enough to dish nothin' back to it?"

"Timothy Shepard, get that thing out of your mouth," she orders, noticing the cigarette he's sucking on. Before he can, she snatches it out from between his teeth and crushes it under the heel of her shoe. "We're leaving. Right now."

"You ain't my boss," Tim says, tilting his chin up defiantly. "I wanna stay."

"Tough shit," she says— second cuss word— and starts hauling him away from the headstone by the elbow; he waits for his uncle to come to his defense, realize he wants to take him in after all, but Luis is silent now, folded into himself and drifted somewhere far away. He's not nearly old enough or strong enough or tough enough yet to be worth that kind of effort, to have been useful to anyone but his father.

His _dead_ father.

(His mother loves him. She must love him, if she doesn't want him in the morgue or in the pen. But her love gets inside his lungs like mustard gas, suffocating him, and for a fleeting moment, he wonders how his life would be going if she were the one in the ground.)


	2. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

_February 9th, 1960_

"What the fuck is this?"

Tim jerks awake to this month's stepdad yanking him upright, his hair tangled in his fist. He's holding—

oh, motherfucker. Must've fallen out of his coat pocket last night, after he was down at Buck's, and now he's really in for it.

"It's called a joint," Tim says in the bored, tough voice he reserves for cops and school principals. "Might do you some good to smoke one."

He knows he's going to pay dearly for that remark, and almost regrets it when the back of Ed's hand collides with his mouth, knocking him against the headboard. It doesn't hurt, he tells himself, that sad little slap. Shit, Dad once cracked him on the skull with a pistol, and he didn't shed a tear. " _Pendejo_ ," he mutters, not too far under his breath. " _No puedes apuntar_."

"Don't you talk Mexican at me." He bares his tobacco-stained teeth like a rabid dog. "You dirty little spic. What did you just say?"

"I said you can't aim worth _shit._ "

He tastes blood this time, his teeth grazing the side of his cheek and making a coppery wound, but he's still not sorry. He has to get his victories where he can in this house, even if they're Pyrrhic ones— it's the only way he can live with himself, not collapse under Ed's weight. "My house"— he punctuates this with a sharp jab at his own chest— "ain't some shack for you to stash dope. You're thirteen years old. The hell are you gonna be like when you're twenty?"

 _Dead._

"Six feet under, I bet," Ed says, reading his mind. "Just like your no-good hood daddy."

"Don't talk shit about my dad." Tim bunches the blankets up in his fists, hard enough to turn his knuckles white. "And this ain't your fucking house."

"I'm done bein' disrespected— I've had it." Ed's nostrils flare, his mouth settling in an angry slash. "You pay the bills 'round here? You put food on the table? No, I'm the guy who does all that. All you do is get driven home by the five-o and smart off."

Tim sees Curly out of the corner of his eye; the running water in the bathroom must have covered up the sound of the fight going down, and he's approaching the door. And he knows, deep in the hollows of his bones, that if Curly comes in here now, Ed's fury is going to explode all over him too. "You're like a stray puppy, you think she's gonna keep you if you're good enough." He lowers his voice conspirationally. "But I been here a lot longer than you, buddy. She's gonna throw you out on your ass just like the others, and I hope I get a front-row seat."

The next few moments are a dizzy mess; rapid slaps to the head, Ed's belt hissing through the loops and wrapped around his fist, blows raining down in a nauseating rhythm. He still can't aim worth shit. That's not much of a comfort when he's got to curl up to protect his stomach.

"Mom says breakfast's ready."

Curly looks the most white out of all of them, his skin a shade paler and his eyes a brighter blue than Tim's, so Tim thought Curly might be his favorite— yet Ed sees them the same. As threats. Tim wants to scream, tell him to run before Ed decides to switch targets. But Ed drops the belt, lets Tim fall back down onto the mattress. "Go get ready for school," he says, giving him one last parting clip on the ear. "And I better not get no more phone calls sayin' you ain't there, or there's gonna be hell to pay."

Before Tim can catch his breath from the aborted licking, try to shove some more air into deflated lungs, Curly's leaning over him. "You okay?" he asks, specks of toothpaste foam still clinging to the sides of his mouth. "He was beatin' on you real bad."

He shakily sits up and hits Curly in the arm— not hard, just enough so he remembers who's boss. "I told you to quit playin' hero, retard. I don't need to worry 'bout your dumb ass gettin' beat too."

"I don't need you to protect me," Curly says, his fists balled up with fury. He thinks that just because he's the toughest little shit in the fifth grade, biggest bully on the playground, he can take anyone's punch now. Tim doesn't want him to find out the truth the hard way. "I can take care of myself."

"I'm the big brother, and you're the kid brother— it's my damn job to protect you." Though all of his muscles are protesting, Tim manages to clamber to his feet. Nothing's broken, it's no big deal, he can handle it. "You heard him, go get your shit for school."

Curly's bursts of defiance never last too long, and he starts digging through his backpack and tossing out wads of crumpled paper, babbling about some field trip the whole grade is taking to the natural history museum today. Tim tries not to let it wash over him like the refrigerator's hum, lost inside his own head. He gets as far as 'velociraptor skeleton' before he gives up the fight.

Tim really, really doesn't fucking like Uncle Ed, whose temper has more triggers than a Glock factory. The good thing about not liking an uncle, though, is that it probably won't be too long before Uncle Ed meets the same fate as Uncle Will, Uncle Don, and Uncle Chet— getting kicked straight out the door, his Buddy Holly albums and dusty work boots spangling the lawn.

Not because Ma's tired of watching her boys walk around sporting black eyes and split lips. No, she's just found some new sucker with a fatter paycheck to string along.

* * *

"Why can't you just behave yourself?"

Tim digs his sock-covered toe into a crack on the kitchen floor instead of answering her, ignoring the bowl of cornflakes she slams in front of him. She's a tiny woman, dark, with eyes that never stop moving in her sunken face and a body that never stops moving, either. Thirty, and looks younger— she could pick up better guys than she does, at least until she opens her mouth. "Your stepdaddy had a long shift yesterday," she says, ready with an endless stream of excuses. "He doesn't need to come home to your bad attitude."

"Ed's a prick."

She slaps him upside the head. She's always slapping at him, but it never really hurts. "Don't call him nothin'. He's a good man. We ain't spent a day hungry since he got here."

Well, he'll give the fucker that much— he keeps the lights on. "He just doesn't want you in trouble," she continues in that sugary-sweet voice of hers. "So quit trying to find it. He's afraid you're gonna end up in the slammer, that's why he's gotta be hard on you."

He tunes her out, swirling his spoon in the milk and letting the cornflakes turn to mush. She's got the same speech every time, he knows the score, and he's heard it enough times to be able to recite it in his sleep.

"He loves you, Tim. He wants what's best for you."

"Sure he fucking does."

"You watch that dirty mouth 'fore I introduce it to a bar of Ivory," she threatens, and he has no fear just rolling his eyes at her. His ma can't punish him anymore, not since he grew taller than her— last time she tried to belt him, he couldn't stop laughing at all of her feeble swings, taunting her to put her shoulder into it, until she threw the thing at him and stormed off. Now, she just lets the stepdads do what they want with him, says it's a man's job to discipline the kids. "I wish you'd start callin' him Dad already."

"When it's minus ten in hell, maybe."

"That's exactly where you're headed, if you don't watch yourself," she says, making the sign of the cross. She does that every time he brings up his real dad, so he's stopped doing it. "Where did I go wrong with you, huh? Why don't you ever act right?"

Tim is about to reassure her by saying that he turned out wrong all on his own, 'cause he never listens to her anyway, when Curly mercifully interrupts for the second time that morning, Angela on his heels. "Mama, I need fifty cents. For one of them plastic dinosaurs they sell."

If Tim asked her for any kind of money at that age, she would've smacked him a good one, especially for some dumb shit like a plastic dinosaur. But her entire face softens, the light of God shining through it, whenever she's around Curly; he has that effect on people, an easy charisma that makes life's blows glance off him. Tim loves Curly, he has to. It's just real hard to love him, sometimes, when he sees her dig through her purse and press the coins into his palm with a kiss to his temple.

"Ain't really for no dinosaur," he whispers as he slides into the seat next to Tim, his lips curving into a devilish smirk. "It's for matches. Me an' Ponyboy Curtis, we're gonna build match guns and set some rats on fire."

Tim used to run around and make a little noise with Darry Curtis, dumb stuff like spraying walls and picking fights with the North Side baby Socs, before Darry's dad got out of the slammer and whooped the sense back into him. He's about to mention this to Curly, or maybe tell Curly not to be such a dumbass (he doesn't trust Curly to tie his own shoes most days, much less operate flamethrowers) when Angela pipes in, her voice shrill and annoyed.

"Curly's your favorite." She smacks her spoon against the side of the bowl with a loud clang, sloshing some of the milk onto the table. "I can't have _ten_ lousy cents for lip balm, not _ever_ —"

(He'd tell Curly to just lift whatever he wanted, even think it was good practice for adulthood, but he doesn't want his kid sister involved with none of that shit. Not fighting, not stealing, as long as she's got two brothers to take care of her. He makes a mental note to slip her some money from his weed stash tonight.)

"My favorite child," Ma says, menacingly waving a wooden spoon in the air, "is the child that minds me best. And Curly is the only one of y'all who _ever_ minds me."

They all stiffen, straighten up, when Ed stomps into the kitchen— he manages to suck the air out of any room he enters— but now that he's started the day off with a good dose of violence, he's as docile as a spring lamb. He kisses her cheek like he's fucking Ward Cleaver or something, sweet-talking his wife before another hard day's work, and pours himself a cup of coffee from the pot. "You look gorgeous," he says in a low voice, patting her on the ass. "I can't wait to show you off tonight when my buddies are over."

Jesus, is his ma sure dumb, if all it takes to make her drop her panties is getting to serve Ed's friends pot roast and beer. He doesn't miss the glint of warning in the evil eye Ed shoots him— _you fuck this Norman Rockwell painting up for me, you're gonna wish you were never born._

There isn't enough soap and water in the world to wash the evidence off of Tim's face. He glares right back.

"Y'all be good and listen to your mama now," he says, ruffling Tim and Curly's hair and giving Angela a kiss before heading out the door. He only ever ruffles Tim's hair when she's watching. Tim hates him for that.

She stares after his retreating back, her fingertips pressed up to her smiling, lipsticked mouth. "Have a good day at work, honey," she calls out, forgetting that just yesterday he'd slammed her into the kitchen counter. Foundation and long sleeves don't fully cover the bruises blooming on her wrists, but here she is anyway, whistling Patsy Cline as she washes dishes.

 _Mary Magdalene,_ Tim thinks, with no pangs of guilt. _Stupid whore._

* * *

School is for fools, but if Tim cuts any more class, his ma says she's going to scrape together enough money to send him to Immaculate Heart. And as bad as Millard Fillmore Junior High might be, he figures sucking some priest's dick behind an altar every day would be even worse.

He's repeating that to himself when he hears, "hey, pretty _lady_ , you need a ride?" shouted out the window of a passing '54 Cadillac.

It can't be. He whips around so fast his head almost snaps off his neck, as the car pulls over and skids to a stop. He's still struggling to put the pieces together when two very familiar men clamber out of it.

"You remember me, Timmy?"

Alberto looks ten pounds thinner, and there's a teardrop tattooed under his left eye now; before he can answer, he's slung Tim over his shoulder and started spinning him around in circles, until he's fit to puke. "I almost didn't recognize you, strollin' down the street," he says with mock astonishment. "Goddamn, kid, you look just like Carlos now. Don't he?"

"Spittin' image," Luis agrees, clapping him on the shoulder, and pride blazes in Tim's chest. Tío Luis hasn't been in the slammer or anything recently, but he hasn't seen much of him since Dad's funeral. There's always some new excuse— one of his baby mamas is bothering him for more money, he's on a job, his PO is watching him like a hawk, he's in a heroin daze so deep he wouldn't notice if an asteroid took out the entire state of Oklahoma.

But he's not eleven anymore. Not even twelve. He's thirteen now, almost a man, recruiting for his own gang, and maybe that's finally old enough for them to take him seriously.

"When'd the man let you out?" Tim asks, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets and trying to mimic their careless postures. Judging by their looks, like he's a puppy taking its first wobbly steps, he hasn't succeeded all that well.

"Just last night." Alberto gives him a gold-toothed grin, still giddy from the first tendrils of freedom. "Should've been two weeks ago, but them motherfuckers thought I didn't have a _permanent address_ to come home to. Like I can't count on my own brother to lemme crash with him." Then he nudges Tim in the ribs with his elbow. "You been inside yet, Timmy?"

"Nah," Tim says— he's been hauled down to the station a few times, given some come-to-Jesus talks and sent to pick trash off the highway, but he's yet to be properly sentenced. Guess his ma was right, giving all three kids her name, Shepard— they don't even think to look for Carlos Ramirez's record, judge him by that. "I'm pretty good at not gettin' caught."

He realizes a second later that he's made more sensitive comments in his life, but Alberto just roars with laughter, enough to double him over. "Got this for your daddy after I heard," he says, jabbing at the teardrop. "Stung like a motherfucker— hey, Luis, you think we oughta do him too?"

The pit of Tim's stomach freezes— as much as he wants to be a part of the brotherhood, he's pretty sure both Ma and Ed would take one look at that thing and have no problem throwing him out onto the streets— but Luis intervenes before he can dip too far into the thought. "He's too little still," he says with a wave of his hand, "let him have a couple years with his face intact. Remember, he's still gotta go home to his mama at night."

"How's Mary, anyway?" Alberto asks, lighting up a smoke. Tim can't stop thinking about Curly's stupid match gun. He hopes the dumbass doesn't end up setting _himself_ on fire.

"Still a cunt."

Alberto laughs again. "Lil' Timmy's grown such a big mouth since I been gone, I think we can go ahead with the needle," he says. "Real big. She's a _cunt_ , huh?"

"Awh, lay off," Tim mutters, kicking the dust under his feet. He wishes he wasn't carrying his stupid backpack with textbooks and folders and social studies homework right now, even if he's got a switchblade hidden in the pocket of his jeans. "She's got twenty different gringos runnin' around the house since Papá died. I can call her whatever I want."

"That what happened to your jaw? One of them gringos?"

Luis's voice holds a dangerous edge, but Tim doesn't want to open his mouth and admit to it, that some beer-bellied gringo pounds the shit out of him whenever he damn well wants. Their interest in him is precarious enough already, without him admitting that he can't even handle that much. "This?" he says, prodding at the swollen part. "Shit, this ain't no big thing. Got into it with some Socs yesterday, is all."

He can tell they don't believe him, but mercifully, they don't press the subject. "C'mon, enough of shootin' the shit in the middle of the street," Alberto says, opening up the lid of the glove compartment— there's a bottle of whiskey inside, SoCo, the good stuff. "We got too much catchin' up to do."


End file.
